THe CURJ\eNT CINeMA After the Dorm e.. A FEW years ago, the world took revenge on Mary McCarthy for her not very loving quarrel with it bv \t , turning the most , t ' con ventional of her "t ,). .'. /\ ' novels into a ramp- i '\ ",' ant best-seller. The .' ninnies and quacks and do-gooders whom she had flayed alive in several earlier, commercially inconspicuous works of fiction rushed up by the tens of thousands, giving no thought to their missing skins, and em- braced her for "The Group," threaten- ing the astonished author wIth the last fate she could have wished-to be prac- tically hugged to death by her admiring victims. Now "The Group" has been brought to the screen, and it will be interesting to See how Miss McCarthy reacts to this latest tribute. For the movie is unquestionably intended as d tribute; it makes an obvious effort to remain faithful to the book, even at the risk of occasionally mystifying its audi- ence, and if, as I expect, it proves a great success at the box office, Miss McCarthy will be entitled to feel more uneasy than ever about the original re- sponse to "The Group." It may well have been the respect- ful attempt by Sidney Buchman, the author of the screenplay, to preserve the structure of the novel that has caused the movie to end up in a sort of limbo of unfulfilled intentions, neither comic nor tragic, though with a few funny scenes and one or two sad ones. Long as the movie is (two hours and thirty- four minutes), it cannot hope to ac- commodate the multiplicity of lives that Miss McCarthy found room for in her ample novel, and its vain struggle to do so lets us see that neither the movie nor the novel is constructed in such a way as to lead up to a necessary climax and catastrophe. The plot of "The Group" is an arbitrary binding together of un- related parts, and it comeS to an end because a certain accident takes place at a certain time; a sudden earthquake would have served the same purpose. Moreover, in having to cut corners where it can, the movie brings us only the highlights of the lives of the eight heroines, and these flash by so quickly and so often that they approach the level of soap opera-tune in tomorrow, EX IT 'ì J . r I s f:: < ' ..';.Ø' q, < v. <- ..' ,.. t. \ .:::. . ':,:\ , '" , ." ::" ,/i.. :. -<:<':' :::':: !Ie 5 t, ': """" ''r / . " << .:ì { :::;:. ,:. .: \ ,." .' 1 " , '. .0)- ,':':' .: . '.$' ^ <0-. (C ..... ....= \,<' ', ....: v;t ..:..... # . r;" '< t. i . . ,,A. ..:. , " ::. i@' .. :.:. S j ;t .: ,6 : >>. t....< . , .,' i , . ',' . ..1 s ers ys . * ':. . , '.... ø.. l' -:::> 'f, * 'bot. ' "* 1Þ -::::. } if ,. ?'" [t, '* . .... :> ..:. '.I:, .::::.. .. 173 es. . '.:.r .,. .. . * .. í ,. ,.. . 'j(< ,., .. 'l< .. "'" :if' . .:. . .. =<: " .. .... '. r .. . " ^"" . 1 . "" . . ,. " - '\\ .. " . fi II ,.,. to' . # . . 4' .. -=::-::. h '%" :$ -:. 4 . '" . >. , . ...., "'þ,:,' . . d . æ' . $- , #;:' \- ::-:: :::.... Depending on definition If mod means square*end Roosters were ever so" Conversely If mod is strictly the Carnaby..look floral print. Only some roosters are mod Possibly, the mod ist. At very good stores,. $2.50. " ," -9 rooster ROOSTER, INC. 17 EAST 37 STREET. NEW YORK